


Follow Paths of Starlight, of Mourning and Memory

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had always been easy for Tauriel to love those who crossed her path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow Paths of Starlight, of Mourning and Memory

The first time Tauriel fell in love, she was young, even for an elf. Her name was Caleneth, and she was a guard in the service of Thranduil of the Greenwood. She moved with grace as all their kind did, but there was a hardness, also, a weariness. But it was she who laughed the loudest at the King's celebrations, who was the most merry, who made light of the world beyond, even as she looked to the sky and the stars and the moon.

Tauriel watched her drink the king's wine until the plum-purple drink stained her lips and dribbled down the cleft in her chin, and Tauriel handed her a scrap of green cloth cut from her own sleeve, and Caleneth used it to wipe the drink from her skin before bowing her head to let Tauriel kiss it from her lips, and Tauriel closed her eyes as the moon set and the sun rose.

Many, many years later, Caleneth went into the depths of Mirkwood, and did not return. As a guard herself now, Tauriel was sent to find her, and as she followed the slight tracks she had left behind, Tauriel came across a nest of spiders, dispatching them easily, but there was no sign of Caleneth, whom she loved, and there never was again, and when there were nights that the stars shone brightly, when they pierced the dark and gloom of the Greenwood, Tauriel raised a drink for Caleneth, for starlight and memory, and truly did Tauriel remember Caleneth, though she wept until the hard touch of the King's hand upon her shoulder gave her pause, and she turned to him, whispering, "I do not want this, this pain, this love."

His touch slid from her shoulder and he turned away from her, his head bowed under his crown of summer and wild flowers. "And yet it is yours."

Then he was gone, and it was time for Tauriel to continue with her duties in the guard, to keep the forest and their kingdom safe, so she gathered herself to her feet, and in time her pain waned, and Tauriel put it aside in one of the many chambers of her heart. 

Tauriel rose through the ranks of the guard until she was second in command. She was assigned to meet an ambassador of Lothlorien at the edge of the wood, and they greeted each other, hand to shoulder, as was their way. "I am Tauriel," she said.

"And who is your father?"

Tauriel looked at the ground beneath their feet. It crawled with living things, and green things carpeted the ground, softening the slight sound of their light, leather boots. In truth, if she did as her heart bade her, she would claim Thranduil as her father, for welcoming her into his house, for treating her almost as his own. She had seen him once without the glamor that fooled the eyes of men and elves and himself, his face ravaged with dragon fire, his eye blinded. At times, when the air was easy and lulled between them, when the crown of branches and leaves was set aside, and they sat together, she would look upon him and wonder that he allowed her this. And as his eyes closed to take his rest, she would stand and take her leave of him, to watch the borders of his land as was her duty and her desire, but she would linger, and she would wonder, and yearn to say, I would look upon your face my lord, my king, my -- "I have no father known to me," she admitted to the emissary at her side. 

They passed as shadows beneath the awning eaves of the trees. They followed the old elven path, so old none could say who had first hewn the stove that paved the way, because though Tauriel knew the forest as she knew herself and could find the way home with her eyes closed, it was yet the safest path. 

But she loved Thranduil as a father and a king, as she loved Legolas as a brother. And they would ride together in the woods, hunting spiders and all foul things drawn to the shadows of Mirkwood their forest, and they would fight side by side, moving as one, fulfilling the will of the other though no word was spoken between them. And when they were done with their labor, before they returned to the merriment of their kin safe within the King's halls, they would sit together under the grace of the trees and the rising twilight. She would run her fingers through his hair, pale and fair as moonlight, plaiting it into braids and then he would do the same to her, her red hair falling through his fingers like water as they sat together in silence. They would return to their kin, they would laugh with them, drink with them, and when Tauriel no longer felt light on her feet but clumsy and ill-willed, did she unlock the grief from her heart under the silver eye of the moon, spilling out a goblet of clear wine that made her mouth dry as it fell to her feet, splashing her boots, for those who no longer drank with them those who no longer sang with them.

And, as she had once escorted emissaries, she was sent in turn to Rivendell to bring a message to Lord Elrond, and it cut her quick not to be trusted in turn with the contents, but Thranduil was her king--and she a lowly sylvan elf. She journeyed swift and sure, resting only briefly for short moments before continuing on with her message and the trust granted to her. 

One night, a fire moon rose, and she lingered a moment, eyes to the sky, gazing upon a moon forged red and gold, holding the light and hearts of autumns long since past, and slowly it filled the sky and paved her way with light so she could walk without fear, and for many moments she wondered about the others who who also wandered and looked to the sky and saw this fiery moon as she did, guarding their paths no matter where they might lead, to duty or home or death, and she felt kinship grow between them, though she did not know their names or their faces.

And it was in Rivendell that she met and fell in love with Arwen Undomiel, though they meant only briefly when Arwen took Tauriel by the hand, and led her to her father by wandering paths that showed her the beauty and grace of Imladris, filled with light and hope when Tauriel did not even know she was in need, that she yearned for it. 

It did not matter that she would not see Arwen again, and it did not matter that Arwen would not feel the same love in return--it only mattered that Tauriel loved Arwen Undomiel, as so many did, and that was enough, even as she bid her farewell. 

And when she told Legolace of the grace of Arwen, of the starlight that shown from her eyes, Legolas put his hand in hers. "You love too easily, Tauriel." 

Tauriel laughed. "And should I not?"

But Legolas' face grew serious and old, like those she had seen in Rivendell. "I fear for you."

"You should not, for I do not fear for myself. Would you tell the stars to cease their shining or for the moon to dim?" Legolas shook his head. "Then do not ask this of me."

Legolas nodded, though by the way his mouth stiffened, Tauriel knew that he was unhappy but how could she help with that, so she touched his hand, and they fled through the woods together, their bows close. 

So, it was not too strange, after all, that she fell in love with Kíli, dwarf of the Lonely Mountain, for Tauriel did love quickly and easily, and had lost many of whom she loved because that was the way of life, even for the elves. And, as Thranduil came to her as she shed her tears for Kíli, who had died when she had not, as he stood over her as his own eyes dimmed, she looked up at him, and cried, "If this is love, then I do not want it."

He knelt beside her, her body already sore from being thrown against stone, but not as greatly as her heart, pain and grief unlocked from the hidden chambers where she had put them away, and they rushed her as a horde, and she bowed her shoulders and her voice shook. "Why does it hurt so much," she wondered as she always wondered when these times came, and Thranduil, her king and father, had no answer for he himself still bore the pain of his own loss, of his own grief, that he yet concealed from her, and he left her alone to her sadness, to grieve the death of Kíli and her fallen kin, many of whom she had loved, many of whom were her friends, many of whom she had stood beside, fought beside, killed beside--now no more.

She pressed a final kiss to Kíli's brow before his kinsman took him away, and she walked through the graveyard the plains had become as if in a daze. The machines of war had thickened the air, and it took a long time before she traveled far enough to see the stars once more. She did not return to the Greenwood, nor did she follow Legolas's path. Instead, she followed the pattern of the rising stars, to whatever path they might find for her, to whatever unknown places, from west to east, there and back, then there and back again until no home was known to her, because she crafted it in the chambers of heart, as she became friend to man and dwarf and to those who lived beyond the map of her kin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Real Elvish](http://www.realelvish.net/) for the name.


End file.
